Nate Zettna, Helena Nguyen, Simon Lloyd D. Restubog, Pauline Schilpzand, Anya Johnson
{"title":"How teams can overcome silence: The roles of humble leadership and team commitment","authors":"Nate Zettna, Helena Nguyen, Simon Lloyd D. Restubog, Pauline Schilpzand, Anya Johnson","doi":"10.1111/peps.12660","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Team performance can be eroded or undermined when team members intentionally withhold information, such as suggestions for improvements, or concerns about issues that matter for the team. Yet, we know very little about whether silence in teams (<jats:italic>team silence)</jats:italic> in fact reduces team performance, and if it does, how team silence might be ameliorated. Grounded in social information processing (SIP) theory, we hypothesize and investigate the role of leaders as a potent social informational source to reduce team silence and in turn, enhance team performance. We further posit the role of team commitment to the organization as an important amplifier of humble leadership in reducing team silence. Across a programmatic series of five empirical studies involving experimental, multisource, and multiwave field data, we found support for the negative relationship between leader humility and team silence. Team silence also mediated the relationship between leader humility and team performance in a variety of work contexts. Findings supported that the benefits of leader humility were amplified in teams with higher levels of organizational commitment. Overall, this paper contributes new theoretical and practical insights by identifying leader humility as a preventative antecedent to team silence, with team commitment to the organization as an important qualifier of the impact of humble leadership on teams.","PeriodicalId":48408,"journal":{"name":"Personnel Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Personnel Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12660","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Team performance can be eroded or undermined when team members intentionally withhold information, such as suggestions for improvements, or concerns about issues that matter for the team. Yet, we know very little about whether silence in teams (team silence) in fact reduces team performance, and if it does, how team silence might be ameliorated. Grounded in social information processing (SIP) theory, we hypothesize and investigate the role of leaders as a potent social informational source to reduce team silence and in turn, enhance team performance. We further posit the role of team commitment to the organization as an important amplifier of humble leadership in reducing team silence. Across a programmatic series of five empirical studies involving experimental, multisource, and multiwave field data, we found support for the negative relationship between leader humility and team silence. Team silence also mediated the relationship between leader humility and team performance in a variety of work contexts. Findings supported that the benefits of leader humility were amplified in teams with higher levels of organizational commitment. Overall, this paper contributes new theoretical and practical insights by identifying leader humility as a preventative antecedent to team silence, with team commitment to the organization as an important qualifier of the impact of humble leadership on teams.
期刊介绍:
Personnel Psychology publishes applied psychological research on personnel problems facing public and private sector organizations. Articles deal with all human resource topics, including job analysis and competency development, selection and recruitment, training and development, performance and career management, diversity, rewards and recognition, work attitudes and motivation, and leadership.